As you take your leave, my time goes with you,
Unachievable dreams strapped to your back,
Forever is a long time to be spent apart but,
Distant memories have never felt so close.

In the field of barley
Yellow sun purveyed
A static record of crickets
Light breeze lifts light linen dresses

I can't even remember six-year-old me.
I don't know if she liked yellow like I do now.
I don't know if she hated spaghetti the way I do.
I don't know if she loved the sky and the clouds and the stars and the moon the way my big self does.

And I always wonder...
What would she think of me?
Are we following the dreams we had at that age?
Are we facing life with the same joy I think we would’ve had at six?
Would she ask me why I like yellow so much if she used to love pink?
What if she loved spaghetti and wanted to eat it every day?
I think maybe she did like the sky like I do.

(What’s not to like?)

Beautiful girl
Know my heart is always yours
You’re who i think about in the mornings and nights
It’s you that i adore.

Of all the things I never said,
I wish I’d told her
“I love you”
before he did.

Her eyes were
the most exquisite shade
of cerulean blue.
Her daughter’s are too—

I remember
the day she arrived,
the day you slipped away, too.

Lost on October third,
two thousand twenty-two...
Could you have stayed
if I’d told you?

Every day then—
and now—
I wish I’d gone
to see you.